Yong Shun Cai

Power Structure and Regime Resilience: Contentious Politics in China

Authoritarian governments may face serious uncertainties when dealing with popular resistance because of the unpredictable consequences of making concessions or repressing opposition. However, a political system with multiple levels of authority can help reduce the uncertainties by granting conditional autonomy to lower-level authorities. Such a power structure prevents excessive repression and unconditional concessions when the priorities of different levels of authority do not match. Under this political arrangement, the central authority can avoid blame when local authorities use repression. The divided power also helps reduce the uncertainties faced by the central authority because it will then have to deal with only a very limited number of instances of resistance. Using the case of China, this article shows that divided state power has allowed the party-state to maintain social stability amid numerous instances of social unrest during the reform era.

Between State and Peasant: Local Cadres and Statistical Reporting in Rural China

As an institutional effort to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the statistics collected across the country, the Chinese government enacted the Chinese Statistical Law in 1983. Its enforcement, however, remains a big problem as revealed by a series of nation-wide inspections ( zhifa jiancha ) carried out after 1985. In the 1989 inspection, for example, there were over 50,000 violations, and more than 60,000 in both the 1994 and the 1997 inspections.1 Such violations, mainly in the form of statistical manipulation, have reportedly occurred at various administrative levels from village to prefecture and even province. In 1998, for example, although the unexpected floods in China and the Asian financial crisis made it difficult for the Chinese government to achieve its pre-estimated growth rate, only one of the 31 principal administrative regions (Xinjiang) reported that it grew at a rate of 7.8 per cent (the national figure), whereas all the rest reported a growth rate of 8 per cent or more. While different ways of price calculation might be partially responsible for the discrepancies between national and provincial figures, “exaggerations about economic performance did exist in some regions.”

Irresponsible state: Local cadres and image-building in China

Existing research on the role of the state in economic development tends to categorize the state as developmental or predatory according to how it makes decisions and allocates resources. However, this characterization does not capture the scenario where the state engages in activities that are beyond the developmental–predatory spectrum. State agents may make decisions and allocate resources neither for real development nor for predatory purposes, but to enhance their own image, leading to a waste of public resources. An exploration of this phenomenon promotes our understanding of the role a state may play. While irresponsible behaviour among state agents may not be unique to a particular country, in the case of China, because of the countrys political arrangements, local state agents have both incentive and opportunity for making irresponsible decisions and misusing resources. He is working on a book manuscript tentatively entitled State and Laid-Off Workers in Reform China: The Silence and Collective Action of the Retrenched.

State Power and Unbalanced Legal Development in China

This study explores how state power in China affects the development of the legal system in a changing environment. Based on a survey of about 290 lawyers, it is found that Chinese lawyers are selective in taking on lawsuits. They are more willing to represent clients in litigations pertaining to economic and civil affairs, as opposed to administrative litigations and criminal cases. For one thing, lawyers receive high payment for lawsuits of an economic nature. For another, there are risks involved in taking on administrative litigations and criminal cases. Selective legal representation by lawyers suggests that legal development in China is unbalanced.

Property rights and fertilizing practices in rural China - Evidence from northern Jiangsu

Economists have long assigned property rights a central role in economic development. In particular, secure property rights, which allegedly exist only under a regime of private ownership, are believed crucial for inducing wealth-maximizing behavior because rational individuals will not invest if the fruits of their investment are not adequately protected (Alchian and Demsetz, 1972; Demsetz, 1967). Applying this premise to agriculture, one would expect that without secure property rights, farmers would not effectively use land in a manner compatible with long-term societal interest (Feder and Feeny, 1993; Johnson, 1972). The nature of property rights associated with the land tenure system in postreform China arguably offers an example of how an incomplete regime of private ownership can undermine economic efficiency. China’s break with collective farming has been credited with driving increased agricultural productivity and output during the initial reform period (circa 1979-1984). Ironically, the subsequent slowdown in

Disciplining Local Officials in China: The Case of Conflict Management

Ensuring the accountability of state agents requires the use of reward and sanction. Like other authoritarian regimes, the Chinese Party-state faces a dilemma in dealing with malfeasant agents: unprincipled tolerance undermines the regime’s legitimacy, but disciplining officials may demoralize agents and result in the loss of state investment in them. Given this dilemma, selective or differentiated discipline becomes a logical choice. Using the case of social conflict management by local officials, this article explores the political rationale behind the use of selective discipline in China. It finds that two factors significantly affect the likelihood of an official being punished for mishandling social conflict: the severity of the consequences of the official’s failure, and his or her role in the failure.

Niche, connections and NGO operation in China

Abstract Social organizations play an important role in social governance because the government lacks sufficient resources and energy to address certain social issues. However, the political system determines the social space in which social organizations operate. In an environment where the operation of social organizations is heavily regulated, social organizations have to be strategic in their interaction with the government and in providing social services. Using a case of a non-government organization (NGO) that provides assistance to AIDS patients in China, this paper explores the strategies employed by NGOs in a regulated environment. This paper finds that identifying the right niche or areas of concern and finding the right partners are crucial factors that affect the feasibility and quality of the enforcement of initiatives or missions of NGOs.

Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt

argument in a short review. He paints a vivid and detailed picture of the intense negotiations that took place in and out of doors and subtly tracks the contours of a process that was fluid, contingent, contested and shaped by its setting. And, in the end, he has written a provocative, engaging book that will help reset the agenda for future debates about the relationships between places and people, the coming of the Revolution, the importance of the cities, and the development of a civic consciousness both before and after the Revolutionary crisis. Michael A. McDonnell University of Sydney a 2009, Michael A. McDonnell